Flooding and mudslides caused by torrential rains have killed at least 178 people in western China and wrecked bridges and power stations, officials said on Wednesday.
About 152 people were reported dead and at least 266 missing after the weekend rains in Shaanxi province, disaster officials said.
”Casualties will certainly increase as the investigation continues,” said a representative for the provincial anti-flood centre, who only gave her surname, Jiang.
She spoke by telephone from Xi’an, the Shaanxi provincial capital.
At least 24 people have been reported dead in the neighbouring province of Sichuan, said a provincial disaster relief official who would only give his surname, Ma.
Thirteen people were missing and 9 820 were homeless, he said.
The rains swept through western China from Saturday to Monday. Thunderstorms were expected in the Sichuan region for the next two days, while cloudy skies were forecast through the weekend in Xi’an.
In Gansu province, to the north of Shaanxi, two people were killed and four injured, said a representative for the provincial anti-flood centre.
He would give his name only as Mr. Song.
In Shaanxi, where 80 000 houses were destroyed or badly damaged, the Chinese military has been called in to help with rescue work, Jiang said.The flooding in Shaanxi has also washed out 13 bridges and 30km of highways and railway lines and wrecked 29 hydropower stations, she said.
Meanwhile, rains in the northwest region of Xinjiang havedestroyed 500 homes and 1 600 hectares of cropland, the official Xinhua News Agency said on Wednesday.
The floods are China’s deadliest this year. Beijing says it has spent billions of dollars on flood prevention since 1998, when 4 150 people died in floods that devastated the central and northeastern parts of the country. – Sapa-AP